Well, it's been a while since I last posted...for obvious reasons. There hasn't been a lot to talk about with the Sox winning it all and the Pats rolling along the way they are. What could I say, for instance, to make fun of Papelbon. Yeah, he looked like a total tool with his silly dancing? So what if he looked like a douche with the Bud Light box on his head?

Do you care that I know of a Sox fan who let his kid rock a Bud Light box on his head as a Halloween costume? Is that a sign of the decline of American civilization or the end of the world as we know it? Probably not. It's also not going to be the one irreversible step that leads to the most heinous of societal ills...underage drinking. It's probably not boding well for the kid's chances of becoming a well adjusted adult at some point, but how many of us are actually well adjusted adults?

I don't have a whole lot to say about Navy beating ND. Sooner or later, it had to happen. I know I ripped Tommy Tuberville for playing for the tie earlier this season against South Florida, and I should rip Weis for not trying a field goal with less than a minute to go in a tie game. But he didn't play for the tie, he went for it on fourth and eight. Not a very good idea, but aggressive. It blew up when the play resulted in a sack and a loss of eight yards (a double negative play when a missed FG would have ended in a turnover on downs at a spot seven yards from the original line of scrimmage). So what can I say, is this loss somehow worse than any of the other terrible losses this season? I'm out of things to say.

The worst thing about losing to Navy is that it still gives BC fans a little something to smile at, even though this FSU loss stuck a dagger in their national title game dreams. For as much as this season delights BC fans, and as much as Notre Dame has fallen off the face of the Earth for a year, it's not all glory in Chestnut Hill. If they lose another game this year, they will not got to a BCS bowl. So there's that to look forward to, small consolation to be sure, but a little bright spot.

And the Patriots survived a game that they could have lost. At the end of the day, all that matters is the final result, but this game presented quite a scare to the Patriots. Some of the calls were questionable, particularly the pass interference on Ellis Hobbs, but that's part of the game. There were too many penalties. The pass protection left a little to be desired. If Indy played a bit more aggressively, who knows whether they could have hled the lead. But as they say, if grasshoppers were armed to the teeth, perhaps they'd have less difficulty with birds eating them.

I have a friend who has a theory that winning this game might not be the best thing for the Pats. They clearly didn't play their best game today, but they still won. It might be a positive because they have so many different ways to beat teams. But it might be a negative, since this might lend even more confidence which might blow up in their face.

If you take LSU as an example, the Bayou Bengals are so far ahead of the teams they play talent wise that they have fallen into the habit of coasting till the fourth quarter till they spring the big comeback on their opponent. Unfortunately, they couldn't quite comeback far enough to beat Kentucky, who won that wild game in Lexington in triple OT. If BC hadn't lost, that might have ended up costing the Tigers a shot at the BCS title game.

The thing about this is that these are conditions and hypotheticals. I hate admitting it, but based on the games to this point in the season, the Patriots are the best team in the NFL. When the dust clears and all the games are played, that might not be the case, but that's too far down the road to see as of today. I think the Pats are vulnerable but that might be true or it might be my own prejudice against the team leading me into a conclusion that isn't accurate.

With their massive offensive output (at least prior to the game today), the Pats have been compared a lot lately to the St Louis Rams. Perhaps this could present a glimmer of hope. Those high powered Rams played the Patriots twice in 2001. We all remember the stunning victory in the Super Bowl, but how many recall the beating the Pats took in the regular season? Obviously the Super Bowl is the much bigger game, and that's why we remember it, but maybe one of these teams the Pats have beaten could sneak up on the juggernaut should they meat again? It doesn't seem likely, but it's not impossible.

It's getting late now, and I'll have more to say as this week goes on about the rest of the NFL games, and some other things that have been neglected over the course of the postseason baseball nightmare.

I would offer my thanks to the commenter who pointed out that Mike Lowell as a cancer survivor would probably be unlikely to take performance enhancing substances if I were convinced. After all, even the great Lance Armstrong wasn't above suspicion. And look at the roster of baseball players who have been suspended under the terms of the new policy. None of them are super-ripped, to use the technical term.

The point I was trying to make, in case I wasn't clear, is that Lowell's numbers in 2005 declined from what they were in 2004. And it wasn't a small dip. It was almost as though his offensive performance emulated a cartoon character who went over a cliff without realizing it. Perhaps his stats windmilled their metaphorical arms comically before they fell off the way they did. But the fact is that his stats dipped just as the MLB steroids scandal was at its peak and then picked up considerably when the story lost its momentum.

It just struck me as a strange coincidence that this process coincided with his trade to a team with the leader of the steroid witch hunt on its board of directors. 33 isn't tremendously old in this day and age, that's true. But I don't believe that professional athletes can turn back the clock, no matter how talented they are. Particularly if they have grey beards and play for inveterately corrupt franchises.

Thank goodness it rained tonight in Blacksburg, VA. Boston College fans will not have to overtax their meager intellectual capacities to explain why the #2 ranked Eagles were the second best team on the field this evening for 59:10. Unfortunately football games last 60 minutes and Virgina Tech couldn't hold its collective water this evening. If it is any consolation, if the offense plays like this against Ohio State (assuming that the next scare isn't the big one), Boston College won't lose by more than 50.

Fortunately, the second overall ranking in the BCS was not the most fraudulent aspect of BC athletics in the last few weeks. There is this video in parody of the Bud Light Real Men of Genius series contrasting the current miraculous success of Boston College's football program against the failure of ND this season.

In a sense, like Boston College itself, this video is a sickening affront against intellectual honesty.

While it mocks Notre Dame's football tradition, it reveals an inherent jealousy on the part of the BC fan who created it. Yes, Notre Dame hasn't won a bowl game since 1994. But is it better to lose the Orange Bowl, the Fiesta Bowl (twice), the Sugar Bowl and the Gator Bowl than it is to win the I Can't Believe It's Not Butter Bowl. It must warm the cockles of a fan's heart to see Fabio present that spray bottle of butter substitute to the winning coach, but I'm an old fashioned sort of guy, I'd rather lose big than win small.At least Notre Dame has made it to a BCS bowl on three occasions. However, with this nice run, BC just might play a game that nets its athletic department a little more than car fare to the game and a canned ham for a change.

For some reason, the creator of this video decided to claim that BC has better Christians than Notre Dame. Perhaps going to an Ignatian evening to say a decade and talk about how a retreat changed your life before visiting a debauch that would make Caligula cringe in the Mods makes you a good Christian, but I must have missed that page in the Baltimore catechism. There are 19 locations on the University of Notre Dame campus which host Eucharistic adoration. By an astonishing coincidence, there are 19 people on the Boston College campus who know what Eucharistic adoration is and 19 roving bands of atheists who would assault any man, woman or child who have adored the Blessed Sacrament.

Notre Dame is the preeminent Catholic university in the world. Every other Catholic college or university is fighting for third place (the eminence of Notre Dame is so great that it occupies two positions). Whatever the reputation of the Jesuits as educators, it was earned long before the Four Horsemen took the field for Knute Rockne. But, to paraphrase Rick Pitino, Ignatius Loyola isn't walking through that door. Francis Xavier isn't walking through that door. Robert Bellarmine isn't walking through that door. As a quick note to BC fans reading this, all three were Jesuit priests and are Catholic saints.

I do not know what would happen should they walk through the door of which Pitino spoke, but I doubt it would end well for the New England Province of the Society of Jesus. I doubt very highly whether they would be mollified by the settlement of their own piece of the sex abuse scandal. It's hard to say what is the crown jewel in the New England Provinces galaxy of stars Boston College, with its litany of athletic scandals running the gamut from fixed games in the 50s to general gambling in the 90s to the rambunctiousness and misdemeanoring of the basketball team under Al Skinner or the high school soccer coach who used to wrestle his players in their jocks after practice at the flagship high school in the province.

And for those of you who might get angry at my lack of respect for Jesuit education, whatever you'd like to throw at me for my writing and whatever syntactical and grammatical miscues I made, it still hits home and proves my point. I went to a Jesuit high school myself, but I've never bought the party line on BC. I think it was better as a commuter school than it is as what they have made it. BC students are crass, boorish and bullying as a rule when they leave campus, I see no reason to suspect that they are any better in a classroom.

And while the Red Sox took a 2-0 lead on this fine autumn evening, I wonder how Sox fans felt when they saw the team's principal owner with his fingers in his ears as Papelbon struck out the final batter of the game. Truly it's a labor of love and not a profit seeking venture for John Henry.

And so we've seen the first six out save in the soon to be illustrious career of Jonathan Papelbon. And the fact that petty crime dropped in Boston this evening as every cutthroat, lowlife, drug pusher and total douche sat down for these last five hours to watch the game is cold comfort. So now we root for the Rockies and hope the eight day layoff wasn't enough to kill their mojo.

I am too bitter, and too depressed at the moment to comment in greater detail. So get bent, citizens of Red Sox Nation. Get bent forthwith.

Could Cris Collinsworth blink any more? Is this something that has been encouraged by his advisers/handlers so that he looks slightly less like a phallus with legs and a thousand dollar suit?

Ladies and Gentlemen, this was a very good weekend. With a family wedding, bachelor party and a golf match I haven't spent much time sober over the last several day, hence the lack of posts. God knows, the times I have posted while intoxicated haven't worked out for me. I'm rambling, incoherent and hostile and it kills my traffic.

But I predicted that the Red Sox would have a lot of trouble handling the Detroit Tigers should they meet in the postseason. I believe that the Tigers have better pitching and a deeper offense. And there's always Gary Sheffield who seems to take a personal interest in seeing the Red Sox suffer. It was nice to see them sweep the
BoSox this weekend, or at least to know that they swept the Sox since I missed the games Saturday and Sunday.

I think this picture of our dear friend Jonathan Papelbon proving himself a better match for an inanimate object like the water cooler than he was for the Tigers lineup sums up the weekend.

It will probably sum up the season for the Red Sox when it all ends in tears (to paraphrase Marvin the Paranoid Android from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy). The Red Sox are great bullies, they can front run with the best of them, but they have problems when a team isn't intimidated by Tito's tools.

But the wedding was far more interesting than any mere baseball game. I got smashed beyond all possible recognition. The wedding reception was held at the bride's house, which was surprisingly less disastrous for the most part. Right up until the shots of Irish Mist, Bailey's and Bushmills got together and took me down, I was doing fine. Of course when they did get together, I ended up chasing the bride's young cousin who took my suit coat and shook me down for $10 to get it back.

I didn't want to pay him, so I tried to chase after him to get it back. Unfortunately, I managed to blow through the screen door on the bride's deck. I broke through it as though I were the Kool Aid Man crashing through the wall. Unfortunately, I did not have the presence of mind to shout "Oh Yeah" as I blew through the door. I was also informed that I managed to insult two or three of the bride's cousins.

Even better, the two people who ended up stuck driving me home were reluctant to do so because they were afraid that I was going to vomit in their car. I answered them as I staggered and swayed as though I were out with George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg when the three weather systems collided to form the perfect storm that I had eaten a full pizza and a plate of chicken which the bride's sister cut up for me as though I were a small child. My rationale was that I had at least 35-45 minutes before I'd throw up and it was only a ten minute ride. For the record, I never threw up. I held my liquor, I might not have handled it well but I held it.

Of course I didn't know this until this morning when a few of the other wedding guests told me what I had done and said as they laughed at me. I had the feeling I did something colossally dumb because I had to drive over to the bride's house to pick up somethings I'd left behind. As I turned down the street to get to the house, I had that creepy, horror movie type feeling that I was walking into the scene of a crime.

Then when I got there, the maid of honor (who turned out to be the one who cut the chicken for me) informed me that I owed them a new screen. Thankfully, the bride's cousin, the diary farmer from Ireland managed to repair the screen. And when I ran into the bride's cousins whom I insulted, they accepted my apology and said it wasn't a big deal. It could have been much worse. I expected when I woke up and realized that there were large chunks of the late hours which I couldn't account for, I fully expected someone to throw a beating on me because I am, as my mother says, an obnoxious drunk. So this was a good weekend in Cincinnati Kid Land.

So it's been a few days since my last post. I must confess, I haven't bothered to watch any of the NBA Finals. I've resigned myself to the Spurs winning it all, again. But that doesn't mean I have to watch it unfold. The NBA is rapidly becoming dead to me. LeBron is the only guy on either team that can play above the rim and play the game at the same time. The only other thing remotely interesting about this series is the fact that Tony Parker is about to marry an incredibly beautiful woman. Since that is all the NBA Finals have going, I have better things to do.

I wonder now, how Red Sox fans feel about their team. Roger Clemens is back with the Yankees. All of a sudden, the Bronx Bombers aren't bombing any more, at least not in the sense that had Red Sox Nation revelling not so long ago. I take it you remember those days, when the lead was 14 and 1/2 games. Now it's down to 9 and 1/2. And there are a whole lot of games left to be played.

Today, following Randy Johnson's solid outing, I find myself wondering if there is a little trouble brewing in paradise. Timlin did not look very good in his return to the big club. The trouble is, the Sox get a chance to bounce back from a stretch where they lost 5 games out of 7 against two playoff teams from a year ago. First they had the three game set with the Diamondbacks, and now they come home to play the Rockies and the Giants. Let's face it, neither of those teams are particularly good.

The worst part of the Giants series is that I will be forced to root against both teams. There is a maddeningly little conundrum for you, rooting against two teams one of whom is almost assured to win barring some sort of cataclysm like a meteor hitting the stadium. That might not be so bad, but for the fact that if a meteor hits Fenway, I'm pretty sure that it's not going to end well for me. I'm no astrophysicist, or any kind of physicist for that matter, but I'm willing to bet that I'd be in a world of hurt in that scenario.

I just can't root for Barry Bonds, at least not until someone tells me how he became the only power hitter to age like wine without turning into vinegar. I'm also not sure how he managed to develop shin splints at his age. I thought that was a malady that affected teenagers going through puberty, but then I'm not a doctor in addition to not being any kind of physicist. I just don't like Barry Bonds, and I never will.

Every now and then, I notice something and wonder if I'm the only person in the world that reacts to it in a certain way. Today it's the trouble I see brewing in paradise. Buried in the middle of Gordon Edes' Red Sox Notebook column in the Globe, there is this comment from Julian Tavarez: "Tavarez revealed he has been pitching with a blister on the middle finger of his pitching hand. "[Josh ] Beckett would be on the DL with this,"." It seems frightfully rude of him to say a thing like that.

In certain circles, one would consider that throwing a teammate under the bus. If Terrell Owens dared say a thing like that, villagers would be chasing him down with torches and pitchforks. Or failing that, every sports writer with a deadline and more paunch than brains would be after him as though he'd sold poisoned milk to school children. Maybe Tavarez is free to say what he pleases about whom he pleases when he pleases because he's the only guy in the organization that can talk to Manny Ramirez.

Part of the reason that Tavarez has not been called on the carpet for his comment about Beckett has to stem from the fact that the organization and the fans are unusually slow-witted. No one in Red Sox Nation will even grasp the meaning of the blister comments for another two or three news cycles. So if the team plays well, it will all blow over. But if they keep giving games back to the Yankees and the atmosphere around the team turns negative, this is a story that could come back to haunt them. Give them another run like they had against NY and Oakland and the CHB will be on this like noxious odor on horse manure.

I meant to do this last week, but other matters intruded. In the past, I have been critical of Bill Simmons. That was before I realized that the Sports Guy is tough. Consider the way he laid the smack down on a Cavaliers beat writer who dared blaspheme against the mighty Simmons. Maybe I'm wrong, but that segment of his blog post had to be the online journalistic equivalent of the studio boss waking up to the horse's head in his bed. You simply don't trifle with Bill Simmons.

I really don't care if the writer from Cleveland criticized Simmons fairly or unfairly. Whatever claim to sympathy the Sports Guy might have had went out the window when he threw the coy little reference to the fact that he makes considerably more money than the beat writer in question. There was a time when Simmons was writing on high school sports for the Boston Herald as long as he could fit that into his schedule between shining Michael Gee's shoes with his face and serving as Steve Buckley's human footstool.

I couldn't help but chuckle at this little gem: "Bottom line: If you're going to rip another writer, make sure you've actually read the guy first." When did Bill Simmons become Stone Cold Steve Austin? Where did he acquire the right to set the bottom line in any question? At the risk of transgressing my new rule about people with no right to set the bottom line setting the bottom line, I have a bottom line for Simmons. He's a bully. And a fraud.

He has no problem ripping Art Shell. Or Isiah Thomas. But Heaven forbid that some minnow should dare think that turnabout is fair play and that mean things can be said about Bill Simmons. If one can say or write harsh words about another person, then one ought to be able to take a little bit from another person. Alas, lessons like that must not be taught on the mean streets of suburban Connecticut.

Sometimes I wonder what goes on in Terry Francona's fragile little mind. Tonight, according to Remy and Orsillo, he hoped to get seven innings out of Julian Tavarez. Aside from the fact that Tavarez has gone seven innings only once this season and had thrown over 100 pitches twice coming into this evening's game against Oakland (which is run by the Sabremetrician's lizard king), it seemed like a nice plan. Unfortunately, even good plans sometimes fall apart.

As it was, the Francona Tavarez plan hit a snag in the form of Mark Ellis, who was a single short of the cycle, having faced Tavarez three times in his 5 and 2/3 innings of work tonight. Just in case you care, Mark Ellis was hitting .257 when he came up for his third at bat of the evening. But apparently Julian Tavarez was good for what ailed him at the plate.

I am not happy about this series, even though Papelbon is almost assuredly not available for Game One. After all, Francona's mighty closer is only to be used in consecutive games in the direst circumstances. Of course when you're Terry Francona, sometimes the direst circumstances include a game in which the Sox were leading by five runs in the ninth and then a tie game in the top of the ninth the following evening. On the plus side, as neither was a save situation, Papelbon has only one blown save to date.

But, the real problem is that the Oakland offense is not good. Outside of Ellis' remarkable performance, the offense did very little against the least formidable of the Red Sox starters. And on the other side, the Red Sox are coming off a long game with a slightly later start than usual (8PM Eastern vs. the usual 7PM game time) and a cross country flight that got them into Oakland in the early morning hours. So it was no surprise that their offense struggled against Danny Haren, the ace of this Oakland staff. It bodes ill for Oakland that their pitching gets worse as the Red SOx finally have a chance at a full night's sleep.

In other news that bodes ill for Sedition In Red Sox Nation, Jon Lester threw a complete game one hitter at the Norfolk Tides today in a 7-1 victory for the Pawtucket Red Sox. Off the top of my head, I couldn't tell you the name of a single player on the Norfolk Tides, but I'm willing to bet that they aren't very good. I base this supposition on the knowledge that they are the Orioles' AAA affiliate, and the Orioles aren't that good.

Any pro-quality prospect in Orioles organization is probably competing to push the spare parts that surround Miguel Tejada and Brian Roberts out of Camden Yards. So Lester didn't exactly throw a one hitter against the 1927 New York Yankees. Here is as good a place as any for me to offer this disclaimer, I am glad that his cancer seems to be in remission, but not glad enough to wish him professional success in this organization.

And we have a tool of note segment from this weekend's spectacular managerial tirades. It's not Lou Pinella, who didn't seem to do anything to deserve a suspension. Nor is it Ozzie Guillen, who is still immune from criticism in this space because he makes Jay Mariotti froth at the mouth. Nor is it the manager of the Mississippi Braves for his spectacularly stupid behavior.

Instead, it is the entire Mississippi Braves organization. I'm sure you've seen this footage by now, but I give you the video of this sad spectacle in part because it's funny, but also to ask this question: "Why didn't a player, a coach, a front office executive or a damn peanut vendor go out there and tackle that nitwit before he started crawling like a fat guy trying to do Rambo in some demented parlor game like charades throwing the rosin bag as though it were a grenade?"



I was under the impression that professional sports teams were expected to look out for one another. Granted that fracas between Barrett and the Big Z in the dugout at Wrigley calls that naive assumption into question, but don't minor league teams sell themselves as a purer form of baseball, untainted by the vast sums that grow monster egos at the highest level? The video is just surreal.

His team allowed him to ruin his career. Even if he somehow managed to cure cancer (I admit that's somewhat unlikely for the manager of an obscure AA team), every single person who watches it will remember him as the guy who slunk on the turf behind the pitcher's mound as though he were an infantryman dodging enemy fire and threw the rosin bag like a grenade. Who is ever going to hire him again?

Can you imagine that sell as an MLB general manager? You might as well announce the hiring of Shemp from the Three Stooges (if he weren't dead) as tell the press in any given city that has a professional sports team that you wanted to hire the guy who went ballistic in such a bizarre fashion on the field turf at the Mississippi Braves game. Granted the guy probably had no shot at making it to the Show as a manager. But at least he could have dreamed about it.

Now he's going to go down in history as a viral video loser like that fat guy who fell off the Dance Dance Revolution machine or the loser who filmed himself doing a very graceless rendition of a Jedi routine. Some member of his organization had a moral responsibility to step in and stop him from making such a moron out of himself. Maybe they didn't want to do it, but I feel they owed it to him.

Who is Travis Buck? Up until tonight, it seemed like he was nobody. Then he came up to bat in the hallowed stadium in the Fens this evening, facing the single greatest closer in the history of the world, provided of course you limit that history to April-July of 2006. Travis Buck committed a cardinal sin, one for which the Universe will exact a horrible vengeance. He dared hit a home run off of Jonathan Papelbon, handing that fearsome reliever his first blown save of the season.

Having the best record in baseball in April is all well and good, and going through a whole month of baseball without a blown save is the first step on the way to a World Series win. But could it be that there are some flaws beginning to emerge in the mighty Red Sox facade? They started out strong, taking a four run lead bu the end of the third inning. And then they allowed the As to score five unanswered runs.

And in blowing his first save of the season, Papelbon threw 35 pitches. That's an awful lot for a guy with arm concerns. It's even more when you consider the fact that the team is taking every conceivable measure to limit his appearances and keep him from overtaxing his mighty arm. Sooner or later, the team will need more out of its bullpen than it can deliver.

Okajima has massively exceeded expectations, to my disappointment, but there is no guarantee that he can sustain this performance level over 50 appearances. Timlin is not a spring chicken anymore. Brendan Donnelly is a fearsome competitor when it comes to getting into shoving matches with Jose Guillen, but he took the loss tonight. Who knows when they'll need a big performance out of Papelbon again? And who is 100% convinced that a guy who looked pretty tired in his lone inning of work tonight can keep pitching at the level the Red Sox require to sustain this momentum? Plus the Yankees are playing the Rangers right now, and looked like they might come alive any day now.

The Dallas Mavericks managed to stave off elimination tonight, winning Game Five in their series with the Golden State Warriors. It's depressing, but I can't shake the feeling that they are poised to make a run in the next two games entirely too reminiscent of the run Miami made right over them in last year's Finals. I really don't want to see that happen, but for some reason I can't get too motivated to root for Golden State.

I'm not sure why. They play a very entertaining brand of basketball, in fact their style is very close to what basketball ought to be. Plus I really hate Dallas. I think it's Baron Davis that is turning me away from the Warriors. Look at this video of Baron Davis clapping in the process of being ejected from Game Two of this series. I don't really know how to describe it, but it's eerie. I've never seen anyone clap in such a maniacal fashion. Watching the guy clap like that got me thinking that he just might have a freezer full of body parts (human, animal, both) in a garage somewhere in the suburbs of the Bay Area.



Just a bit more on the NFL Draft, I was not particularly impressed with the Bears top pick in the recent draft. I think Greg Olsen has a chance to be a very good tight end in the NFL, but I think they had bigger problems to address. I think they could have used Alan Branch, even though Mel Kiper wasn't in love with his work ethic. They very nearly lucked into him with their second round pick, but Arizona made a crafty move to trade ahead of them.

I was also hoping they'd get a chance at Joe Staley when Kansas City didn't take him. I, or more precisely my fantasy team, badly needed Kansas City to take the best available offensive lineman. Larry Johnson was the centerpiece of my team for the last season and a half (it's a keeper league). Now, there is the fact that it's been many moons since a back who set the NFL record for carries in a season came back strong the following year. Signs do not point to LJ having a very good year behind a makeshift offensive line which has not recovered from the retirement of Willie Roaf and now Will Shields is gone. Bad times, but I can't let LJ go at the moment.

But back to Greg Olsen...

After today's revelation that Olsen was part of a group of nitwits who recorded an obscene, sexist rap song as freshmen at the U and Jay Mariotti's "effort" to waddle his way to the moral high ground on the subject, I'm inching my way closer to supporting him. In the interest of full disclosure, since I did not own up to the fact that I called out a Red Sox pitcher in my tirade against said team's proclivity for beaning opponents to send messages because he's hit more batters than any other pitcher since 2003 without mentioning that the pitcher in question throws knuckleballs and a fastball that is slower than most changeups, Greg Olsen forsook the University of Notre Dame to play for Miami. So I'm still not particularly inclined to empathize with him.

I know I piled up some tool of note segments yesterday, but believe it or not, I have more. Check out this hilariously disappointing video of a tool trying to power slide/burn out in a Barbie convertible. It's disappointing because there is no audio and it's difficult to tell just how fast he was going at the time of the incident. What a shame.

Perhaps I'm being cruel in enjoying what appeared to be a fairly painful injury as much as I am. But it serves him right. The odds of me experiencing a similar injury have to be in the trillions to one against. There is no way that I'd get into a Barbie car in the first place. I certainly wouldn't allow any observer to record the moment for people like me to mock. And if by some ghastly set of circumstances I broke one or both of those restrictions, I sure as hell wouldn't try some Fast and the Furious style nonsense whilst driving a roofless vehicle designed for little children. So this nitwit deserves to be mocked.

Then there is this video. I'm not sure if it qualifies as a tool of note segment. But it's worth watching. Some unknown person operating under the moniker Leeroy Jenkins is roaming the World of Warcraft landscape and leading unsuspecting gamers into ambushes. I have to salute him for the industry he has exhibited in his quest to tool on tools.



However, World of Warcraft is reeling from being mocked in South Park last year and a recent episode of the Simpsons. Plus it seems like a hell of a lot of time and effort for about 15 minutes of genuine entertainment.

I don't know how I missed the trend, but when did Easter become a big deal again? I understand the religious aspects of the day, but as the Christian population of this country becomes incrementally less Christian with each passing year, you'd think that Easter would come and go with little notice. And then last night as I watched that travesty in Arlington, Texas, I noticed two fat guys in Red Sox jerseys sitting in the crowd wearing bunny ears.

Maybe that's what Easter is in the process of becoming, spring's answer to Halloween - a day which once had religious significance but has become an excuse for adults to act like children and for children to act like even bigger morons than they are on any given weekday. Unfortunately, thinking about Easter more as a day for masquerading than as a day for rebirth might take a little of the bloom of yesterday's impressive triumph over a very mediocre Texas Rangers team.

If you read Curt Schilling's blog post on the win, you'll believe that it was a tremendous performance by Jonathan Papelbon. Of course if you remember the press coverage of the decision to return Papelbon to the bullpen, you might recall that the team was to make a concerted effort to limit him to one inning appearances to protect his shoulder. Morgan and Miller pointed out that Francona is also talking about pitching Papelbon in the 8th and bringing in another pitcher to throw the 9th.

Of course, last night Papelbon pitched an inning and two-thirds. He came in with runners at the corners and only one out. He faced Michael Young and Mark Teixiera in that situation and put the kibosh on the Ranger rally. And somewhere between the Bronx and Minneapolis, Joe Torre would have started preparing his explanation for The Boss when the Red Sox win their first AL East crown of the millennium had he not been so utterly traumatized by the supremely dominant Papelbon.

As Curt Schilling astutely pointed out, the Red Sox return to Fenway for their home opener after having gone .500 on the trip. Things could be worse. And they should be a hell of a lot better. The Red Sox payroll for 2007 is higher than the combined payrolls for the Rangers and Royals. Perhaps I'm being unfair. After all, Larry Lucchino has said that he doesn't like talking about payroll, since it could put the Red Sox at a competitive disadvantage, and I wouldn't want to do anything to hurt the team. So I'll just remind you that neither the Rangers nor the Royals finished last season with a winning record.

I must say, I am not as worried about Papelbon's performance as Red Sox Nation should hope. First, I am not impressed with Mark Teixeira. After his 0 for in the World Baseball Classic (I remember how often I have disparaged that farce, which is why not even getting a hit in it is doubly pathetic) and his slow start last season, I just don't think he's as good as advertised. To be fair, he is currently hitting a very impressive .211 with an RBI to date this season.

Also, I don't think the Rangers lineup is as good as some have said. The entire world may love Michael Young, but it doesn't change the fact that he's hitting .154 at the moment. The team is currently struggling to find timely hitting. Let's not forget that the Rangers came into the Boston series reeling after being swept by the Angels.

So yes, the Red Sox bounced back in a big way yesterday. Schilling looked a million times better than he did against Kansas City. Papelbon slammed the door on the Rangers with authority. Ortiz came alive offensively, hitting his first two home runs of the season. And Manny hit the ball pretty well, even though he had little to show for it but some loud outs.

And yet I think this team ought to be more than a little concerned going forward. Big Schill may have had his groove back, but is the 7 inning 102 pitch performance an indication of great pitching or bad hitting? I would say a bit of both, but I'm an incurable pessimist.

Papelbon slammed the door shut, but he did so against two boppers who might have a little trouble hitting the floor if they fell out of bed at this point in the year. Plus, would Francona have gone to his fragile closer for five outs in the eighth inning of a game on the road in April if he had anything but warm bodies in his bullpen? I think not.

As well as one can hope Schilling, Beckett and Matsuzaka will pitch, I just can't see Red Sox Nation feeling confident in Tim Wakefield and Julian Tavarez at the end of the rotation. JD Drew is 9-23, and hitting .391 in his six games in right field. But what happens if he should slump? Julio Lugo is only hitting .261 at this point. Kevin Youkilis is due to turn back into a pumpkin any day now.

I am aware that the Yankees had a bigger advantage in terms of payroll disparity over their two opponents. And their starters have yet to see the sixth inning. And their defense looks pathetic. But I'm not a Yankee fan, I only root for them because every win for the Yanks is bad for Red Sox Nation. As long as things look bad for the Red Sox, I'm happy. And I get the feeling that things aren't going to go well against the Mariners.

Every once in a great while, there is a coincidence so perfect that it reaffirms my faith in a higher power. Today, as the mighty Boston Red Sox sent the best team $145.7 million dollars could scrape together against the lowly Kansas City Royals in Kaufman Stadium, Turner Classic Movies showed Cromwell.

Since today's educated American seems to possess a knowledge of history gleaned from the drivel passed off as fact by the competing political and intellectual factions and very little genuine learning, I feel compelled to point out that Oliver Cromwell led the English common people to victory over Charles I in the English Civil War. I am aware that as an American of Irish descent and a Roman Catholic, I have two reasons to despise Cromwell, since he was virulently anti-Catholic and committed vicious atrocities against the Irish in repressing their rebellion, but it's difficult not to admire a man with this type of curriculum vitae.

It is only one game, and the start of a very long season. But a tyrant took the field in Kansas City this afternoon. A tyrant compared to the Beatles (fittingly) and to Elvis (blasphemously) by the region's chief sportswriter fell to the Royals. At the end of the day, Daisuke Matsuzaka couldn't save them, and it didn't matter that Jonathan Papelbon returned to close games. Even if it were only for three hours and a bit on April 2, 2007, a team led by Mark Grudzelanik and Tony Pena Jr. was better than the team with Manny Ramirez, Curt Schilling and David Ortiz.

There is no need to point out that the Yankees have a considerably larger payroll than the Red Sox. I will concede that point, but can you defend the team that spent this season attempting to out-Herod Herod? It was the Red Sox, after all, who who outbid their nearest competitor in the Daisuke Matsuzaka sweepstakes by more than ten million dollars. Furthermore, they entered into a corrupt bargain with Scott Boras to sign Matsuzaka. They didn't sign JD Drew for any other reason than he was part of the price to land Daisuke.

Maybe it is unfair for the Yankees to bestride the narrow world like a Colossus, in the words of Shakespeare from Julius Caesar. And Henry and his cohorts may raise prices and squeeze more money out of Red Sox Nation to compete with the influx of capital that will come from a new Yankee Stadium. It is their right as businessmen and, as no one can force the fans to pay it, no authority but the fans can stop them.

My sympathies in this matter lie with the Yankees because whatever else they may be, the Yankees aren't hypocrites. They spend monstrous sums of money, they choke small market teams and in the long run they are probably bad for the overall health of the sport. But they have the good manners to go about their business without trying to make themselves out to be victims.

The Red Sox are a papier-mache version of the Yankees. They spend every nickel they can to compete with the Yankees. In the long run, the Red Sox are as bad for the health of the sport as the Yankees. And they're worse for the overall well being of sports, since they spend what they can and expect pity because they won't build a new stadium. It's not Steinbrenner's fault that Boston is smaller than New York geographically and demographically. It's not his fault that he had a network making more money than NESN. It's life.

Charles I was executed on film, and the tyrant Red Sox fell on the field in Kansas City today. With any luck, they tyrant Gators will fall in Atlanta tonight. I will have a comment on that game and on Noah's future tomorrow.

I'm not as depressed as you might think today. Based on last season (which was the single greatest season in the history of modern relief pitching, at least by the standards that made the late not-so great Dick Radatz a regional media icon) and the title of this site, you might think that the local authorities had to talk me down from the ledge this afternoon. Jonathan Papelbon has returned to the bullpen for the Boston Red Sox, and the American League East is clinched with only 162 games remaining.

I bet those of you who read this space on a regular basis are expecting me to provide a cynical take on this move, to harsh the proverbial buzz of Red Sox Nation. I was fully prepared to do so, until I read this piece in the Washington Post. Jonathan Papelbon and Terry Francona were losing sleep over the turmoil in the bullpen. Can you imagine? The horror, the horror. I don't think I can summon up the energy to go about my daily activities until I find out with absolute certainty that the two of them are no longer running for the shelter of their mother's little helpers.

If you read the Boston Herald (and you do so at your own risk), you will find inspired analyses like this, praising Papelbon as a lights out closer and celebrating his new old role. On ESPN, there was some speculation that this could cause consternation in the Bronx. Somehow, I can't help but think that if Big Stein and Joe Torre are soiling their union suits, it has more to do with general issues of incontinence and less to do with the dazzling return of the greatest closer of all time after 102 career innings.

Looking at Papelbon's career stats, he had a very good season in terms of numbers last year. But he also blew six saves. At the end of the day, I am not too worried about his impressive WHIP or .OPS allowed. Maybe I'm just a casual observer and not a hard core baseball man. Or maybe I'm the world's oldest 27 year old. But I don't dig on stats as the measure of a baseball player. At the end of the day, all that matters is who wins it all. And as much as I hate the little hustling overachiever David Eckstein, I have a lot more regard for him than I do for Papelbon because he submitted a clutch performance in a World Series.

I am not the only person who isn't getting their hopes up for the return of Papelbon. Ken Rosenthal on FOX Sports does a nice job presenting all the questions swirling around this move. It is a fair point to speculate that the Red Sox are making a panic move here, because none of the stop gap solutions they imported this offseason showed any sign of panning out. After all, if they went into the season with Papelbon in the rotation and a gaping hole at the end of the game, Epstein would be running for his life from the fans and the media.

It can't be very encouraging for a Red Sox fan to consider all of the precautions the team plans to take with Papelbon. They're going to limit him to one inning appearances and keep him out of back to back games as much as they can. They aren't going to warm him up without putting him in the game. This is a long list designed to safeguard the arm health of a 26 year old entering his second major league season (the 17 appearances from 2005 don't count).

Hearing about these plans got me thinking about Mark Prior. He was another can't miss pitcher who burst onto the scene, but developed arm problems and for lack of a better term missed (at least to this point). Papelbon was supposed to be the future of the Red Sox rotation. Only 26 years old, with just over 100 innings pitched to this point and supposedly electric stuff, he was a bright beacon of hope to all the tools in the Nation.

His career is by no means over, as of today. But he's a 26 year old pitcher with a shoulder problem. So many things could go wrong. Either the joint isn't properly healed. Or he may develop a mental block, so he never unlocks his full potential. I wouldn't worry too much about the latter scenario, since it seems that his somewhat less than formidable intellect lacks the capacity to construct a mental block. But it's possible.

I think that this move to the pen and the talk about the precautions being taken is something of a smokescreen. After all, I'm not buying that closing is tougher on Pepelbon's shoulder than starting would be. As a closer he'll throw maybe 80 innings. As a starter, he'd throw somewhere in the vicinity of 200 innings. There are those who would place more emphasis on the stress of pitching the 80 innings while trying to hold a lead, but I'm not convinced. With proper warmup and the fact that Papelbon is not sufficiently intelligent to comprehend stress, it shouldn't be an issue.

Remember, Papelbon wasn't exactly dominant in his first spring training start. On the plus side, from the team's point of view, this calls a lot of attention away from the fact that every fifth game, the Boston Red Sox are going to be relying on Julian Tavarez to hold the fort. Between that and the fact that this team is relying on contributions from primetime players like Julio Lugo and JD Drew, I get the feeling that this is going to be a good year for Sedition in Red Sox Nation. Of course, I have been wrong before.

In other matters, I think Texas A and M got boned by the officials tonight. According to NCAA rules, as long as there is more than 4/10 of a second left on the clock, a team can catch and shoot off an inbounds pass. But one guy touching the ball on an inbounds pass 3 inches from the sideline managed to take 1.1 seconds off the clock. At that point, the officials might just as well have ended the game there, maybe buffed Coach Cal's no polish manicure. That would have been about as fair.

I must say that Memphis impressed me. I assumed that they were ripe to be upset even before the Sweet 16 when I saw the bracket. After all, who is left in Conference USA now, outside of a few branches of DeVry, ITT Tech and a University of Phoenix campus in suburban Kansas City (Kansas, not Missouri)? So, like almost every other observer, I laughed at Memphis. Plus, when has a Coach Cal team not underachieved in the tournament? I was amazed they were that close to Texas A and M down the stretch. I just wish the game could have ended without the controversy.

Also, I have to extend some sort of congratulations to Miami-Dade Community College. Their chess team recently upset Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth and Northwestern. Up until today, I didn't even know that there were formal intercollegiate chess competitions. I wonder what the nerds on the Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth or Northwestern chess team will experience when they return to their nerderies after losing to a community college. I bet they have to hand over their pocket protectors in shame.

At the risk of anticipating too much, I wonder whether the lead-in to tomorrow afternoon's Jim Rome is Burning will sound a little something like this:

Welcome.

What is up?

Here's what I'm burning on...

Memo to the Daddy, just because you've won four titles and a couple of MVPs doesn't mean you have the right to say the last two awards are tainted. You have your hands full trying to keep Miami from melting in the heat since Flash went down with the dislocated shoulder. Until you start playing like Superman, don't go running your mouth about Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki. After all, they know that I, Jim Rome, run the show and that there's never been a man so tough when two or three time zones separate us. So start showing me the proper respect, stop smearing Nash and Nowitzki and remember that Jim Rome is super awesome.

I went a long way to say this. But Shaq came out the other day and said that Steve Nash's two MVP awards are tainted. I think it was a little excessive, but I agree with him in principle. At the end of the day, all that matters in sports is that you've done everything you can to help your team win. I don't know that you can say that about Dirk Nowitzki or Steve Nash. You can say that about Shaq, as he has three rings. And I think you can say it about 2004, when the Lakers lost to the Pistons. Shaq played very well in the series, the rest of the Lakers didn't show up.

There is going to be a hellstorm of anti-Shaq commentary all over the World Wide Leader tomorrow. First, the media has to rally behind the MVP procedure since they vote on the award. Second, what compelling sports stories unfolded this weekend? Ohio State beat Wisconsin, and another Bronco tragically died. But that's only 10 minutes of commentary, tops. So Shaq is going to be hunted into hiding, since Steve Nash deserves more than two MVPs and no titles.

There is one other story of interest to me. If, as the old saying goes, ignorance is bliss then Jonathan Papelbon is most assuredly one of the happiest people on the face of the Earth. With apologies to the eminent historian Edward Gibbon, it would require the pen of Steve Buckley to relate a story like this. I really hope this is a joke.

There is no way that Papelbon is serious. He'd have to be some sort of Frankenmoron built in a lab from a series of garden-variety morons. I don't have as much of a problem with the ca-drillion dollar turn of phrase as I do with most of his business plan. First off, it seems like he's about 10 years late to the party when it comes to investing in the internet.

Second, at what point will the online community market be saturated? Myspace, friendster, facebook and the rest are already in place. I don't see a need for another of these sites. I don't see how they can make any money off an idea like this, but then I can't for the life of me figure out why some idiots pay for dog yoga.

Maybe it's a bigger attraction than I can foresee. I don't really understand myspace and the other sites like it. I am a bad user. I don't have a single myspace friend that wasn't my friend in the real world (as opposed to cyberspace) to begin with. I'm not looking to meet a lot of people on myspace, partly because I'm not entirely sure which of the total strangers that view my page are trustworthy and which are trying to hack my page in some half-assed plot to take over the world through spamming myspace users.

I am not one of those people who hits up famous people on myspace to be my cyber-friend. After all, it's not like I'm going to be going out for a beer with celebrity X. I can't think of any celebrity that needs me to post a comment telling them how awesome they are and thanking them for the add. But I guess that makes some people feel connected, so I suppose I should ease up on them. If people want to join this site to be friends with Papelbon or UnderArmour or the unnamed NFL players from the article. Good luck to them.

I will not be one of the legion who joins this new site. I can see a large number of lemmings from Red Sox Nation flocking to this community in a vain effort to attach themselves to the monster that is Papelbon, until he falls short of expectations in his first season as a starter. I have it on not so reliable authority that he has starter stuff. Whether or not he has starter endurance is another story. So if he's out of gas and on the DL in July after falling short of such lofty expectations, don't say I didn't warn you as you drop him from your friends.

At least Red Sox fans will be able to much their blues away with the products of Wise Foods, Inc - the official Potato Chip and Cheez Curl of the Boston Red Sox. On a lighter note, Matt Kenseth won the Wow, I didn't Realize That There Was A NASCAR Race This Week 500 in some loser town in California. This is significant because it marks the first victory of the stock car season for the newly formed Roush Fenway racing conglomerate. Today this race, tomorrow the world series, three weeks five days and two hours after that ...the world.

As the countdown to the most anticipated and therefore biggest college football game of the season goes on, I see more and more talk about what teams should play for the BCS championship. Obviously, the winner of the Ohio State-Michigan game will be there. Since the universe and the fates have conspired to deny Boston College the opportunity to play for the title they so richly deserve (based on their impressive schedule, a down year for the ACC as a conference and the fact that they have only lost twice to this point), some undeserving team will meet the Big 10 champion.

Of the undeserving teams, there are a few possibilities. Right now, it looks like either the winner of the Notre Dame vs. USC game or a one loss SEC champion will make the big game. If you've read this blog over the last 3 months, you probably will have noticed that I am a big Notre Dame fan. I would love to see this team compete in the national championship if they deserved it. That huge loss to Michigan at home should be enough to eliminate the Irish from consideration.

I don't think USC should get in either. Yeah, they beat Arkansas who has been a big surprise this season. But this really hasn't been that great a year for the Pac 10. UCLA played tough against Notre Dame in South Bend, but they haven't been that amazing the rest of the season. Who knows about Cal? Maybe they got caught overlooking Arizona going into the big game against the Trojans. But they still lost to an inferior team. Losing to a terrible Oregon State team has to hurt them.

As for the one loss SEC champion, should there be one, I think they will get more consideration than they might deserve. If Florida wins out and wins the SEC title game, they will almost certainly get into the BCS championship game as I see it. But Florida hasn't been very impressive throughout this season. They had a very good chance to beat Auburn, which would have given them an undefeated season to this point. The Gators had a chance to break the game open and couldn't do it. The Gators should have routed South Carolina at home on Saturday, but they let the Old Ball Coach and his team hang around and nearly beat them. South Carolina would have pulled that game out, but for the blocked kick in the final seconds. I don't see Florida matching up well with the Michigan or Ohio State defense.

If Saturday's game turns into an epic battle, the BCS championship should be a rematch between Ohio State and Michigan. This has to happen if Michigan should come out of Columbus with a win, since Ohio State was at the top of the rankings for the entire season. One late loss should not hurt a team like the Buckeyes more than USC loss to Oregon State, unless Michigan blows out Ohio State. USC did get the shaft when Oklahoma lost the Big 12 championship but still made the title game three years ago, but Oklahoma fell victim to a big underdog not the number 2 team in the nation.

I think that if the Michigan-Ohio State game is decided by double digits and Rutgers beats West Virginia, the Scarlet Knights should play in the BCS championship. I never would have imagined typing that sentence before this season. But that's how I feel. Rutgers will have beaten two top 10 teams. They will be playing well at the right time. They look more consistent and impressive than Florida. Obviously they won't have an embarrassing loss on their resume like Notre Dame and USC, since they would be undefeated.

There is a perception that the Big East had its heart ripped out when its two best teams and BC defected to beef up the ACC in 2003. Considering that Rutgers, Louisville and West Virginia have all risen in the national consciousness since the conference realignment, there is some truth to that sentiment. However, take a look at the ACC now. No ACC teams are in the top ten. Wake Forest controls its own destiny to win a berth in the conference championship.

Wake Forest. They used to be the conference doormat. Imagine if none of the teams defected from the Big East. Is there any guarantee that Miami Virginia Tech or BC could compete with the speed of West Virginia, the Louisville passing attack or Rutgers defensive speed? To paraphrase Norman Dale, you should evaluate the Big East for the conference that it is, not the conference that it isn't. So if Rutgers goes undefeated, I hope you will join me in a "Let them play" campaign as though we were the fans in the Huston Astrodome and the Scarlet Knights were the Bad News Bears in the second installment of their film series.

I think we all wait with baited breath for the press conference Justin Verlander is due to hold at any minute to demand that Jonathan Papelbon receive the AL Rookie of the Year trophy which the voters mysteriously awarded to the Tigers hurler instead of the single best pitcher of every conceivable era. No word yet on a target date for the Cy Young Award being renamed the Jonathan Papelbon Award, but it has to be within 2-3 years. In case you didn't hear, Hanley Ramirez won the NL Rookie of the Year award. As Bob Lobel would say: "Why can't we get guys like that?"

The Celtics lost their third consecutive game tonight, dropping their record to an anemic 1-6. Doc Rivers' days might be numbered. And yet Danny Ainge will be with us forever, it seems. Vlad Tepes, better know to history as the Impaler and to literature and film as Dracula, did more for the people of Wallachia than Ainge has done for the Celtics. Actually, the historical record shows that Vlad was not the monster that Bram Stoker described and he is a national hero in Romania today, but either way Ainge must go.

So the All Star Break is upon us now. The Red Sox are riding in with some momentum, having won 2 of 3 from the Real Sox in Chicago. Yesterday's never ending game could be one a momentum crusher though. It's not every day that I get to see the Red Sox surrender the lead 3 times in one game. Of course 19 inning games aren't exactly a common occurrence for that matter.

Things were looking bleak for me, a couple of days after I started referring to the White Sox as the "Real Sox" they have to go and lose the first two games of the series to my mortal enemies in their own park. I just have that kind of timing. But one doesn't watch the team he hates above all others win the championship in 2004 without developing coping skills, like the ability to find the negative in everybody else's good time.

So I was ready for this post, even if Papelbon didn't come up big with a split that didn't split with 2 outs and a 1 run lead. It was his 3rd blown save of the year, and the first time he'd allowed a run on the road. The good thing about that is from here on the games get bigger as the playoffs approach. Papelbon was up for the stretch run last season, and he did appear in two playoff games, so he has some experience. The question is: "Will he be able to bear up under the strain of closing big games in a pennant race?"

As you might expect, I'm hoping that he won't hold up under the strain. I wonder too, what might happen to his psyche if he blows a few big games and finds out for himself exactly how fickle Red Sox Nation can be. I wasn't very impressed with this analysis of the home run Jermaine Dye hit off him last night:

``I threw it really lackadaisical," Papelbon said. ``He hadn't seen my split the day before. I wanted to throw him something to where he would look at and not swing at, but it caught the middle of the plate.

``At the same time, he hasn't seen my split, and even though it wasn't a good one, you've got to give him credit for keeping that ball fair, one, and taking it out of the park. He was smokin' hot, on fire, between last night and today."

Never having faced the media after blowing a save, I can't really say that I'd carry myself better than Papelbon did. That said, I think he could probably have come up with something that didn't come off as petulant as that excerpt from the Globe story on the game.

He is a bit young. For his sake, I hope he learns that he shouldn't throw lackadaisical pitches with two outs in the bottom of the ninth when trying to protect a one run lead. For my sake, I hope he keeps throwing pitches like that. There is also the chance that his honeymoon with Red Sox Nation might come to a bitter end if he keeps throwing lackadaisical pitches in big situations.
Over the weekend, I watched Gladiator again. Aside from the fact that it might be the best movie of the last ten years, it's also full of amazing scenes, from the battles to the scene where Proximo grabs the slave trader by the junk and yells at him for selling queer giraffes. As I watched the Battle of Carthage reenactment, I realized that Joaquin Phoenix playing Commodus is Mark Cuban. Watch it again, look at the way Commodus reacts to the sword thrusts, it's just like Cuban reeling and flailing when Dirk Nowitzki fails to kick 4th quarter ass (to quote Jason Whitlock).

I wonder now, whether the Benefactor sits in his office reviewing game tapes before sending them off to the league office watching Dwyane Wade driving through the defense and looks at Avery Johnson saying something like: "Why wasn't this called a charge. It vexes me that this wasn't an offensive foul. I'm terribly vexed." Does he sit in his chair at league meetings twirling a sword on the floor like Commodus did in his first meeting with the Senate? Would Mark Cuban make Stu Jackson embrace someone dying of plague?

If Mark Cuban is Commodus, and Bill Simmons is his new hero, does that make the Sports Guy Cuban's version of the loyal senator who tells the story about the sea snake that lets its enemies take bites out of it?

I feel that it is my duty to point out that I am not the first person to make this comparison. Here's what I assume is a representative sample of the people who've thought of this before I did. I thought I had something original here, but it was funny enough to roll out anyway. Or so I thought.

It is May 4, and the season is 28 games old. Papelbon was recently named the DHL Deliveryman of the Month for April. Perhaps this could lead to a potential career in package delivery, in case this baseball thing doesn't work out. I am as well aware of the fact that he has "electric stuff" as anyone. I'm just not convinced from one month of work that he can handle the pressure of closing games for a full season. He wouldn't be the first "can't miss" pitching prospect with "electric stuff" who ended up missing, after all (I know I've said this before).

There is also the question: "How will Red Sox Nation react if he should blow a few saves down the stretch?" Imagine what his life will be like if he chokes in a big game against the Yankees at the end of the season. Obviously, with Papelbon allowing his first 9th inning run of the season last night in the loss to Toronto, the honeymoon period isn't over yet. Sooner or later, this situation will worsen. The law of averages is on my side here.

Things could be a little better from my perspective. The Red Sox are 5-5 over their last ten games. In a perfect world, they'd be 0-10, but I've learned to live with disappointment. I also can't complain all that much, as I mentioned the Trilateral Commission and Howard Hughes in a blog with sedition in its title and I haven't been detained for questioning by any of the duly appointed authorities. It is a good thing that being long-winded and having inelegant sentence structure are not yet illegal, at least for me.

On that note, I couldn't help but notice that more people are visiting this site earlier and more often than I had expected at this point. I couldn't help but notice because one of the friends of this site (who is far more skilled in high tech matters than I) told me. He also told me that my posts are "incoherent but inspired." I am sure that he's right, but I have neither the time nor the inclination to change that.

Actually, I must confess that I do have the time. I'm just a bit lazy. Like Arthur Dent said in The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy: "I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my life-style." The blog needs more editing, but I don't want to do it. That said, I am a bit disturbed by the number of simple mistakes that have slipped past me and spell check. Since I don't want to look like any more of a jackass than is absolutely necessary, I promise to work on a way to clean up minor errors without taking away the raving stream of consciousness that gives the blog its peculiar charm.

That accounts for my minor errors. There is, however, one glaring error somewhere in this blog. Unlike the minor errors, it is not a product of my sloth (the deadly sin, not the three-toed or seven-toed variety). It is deliberate and calculated, and it's there for two reasons. The first is that I remember hearing one day that the guild of weavers who wove Oriental rugs in earlier times deliberately wove an inconsistency into the pattern because only God is perfect. The second is that one of the core principles of this site is that Red Sox fans will refuse to acknowledge obvious flaws and deficiencies in their team, so how could they notice one in a site like this.

Now that I've finished my post for the evening, I will conclude by promising another installment in my Great Moments in Red Sox History series, and a brand new feature. Good night, and go Orioles.

P.S. In the wake of a sort of informal survey that I have conducted recently, I think I might be the only person in the North East that will admit to liking REO Speedwagon. As for whether or not that makes me a geek, I think that ship sailed with the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy reference. What can you do, though? It's not like publishing a pseudonymous blog was helping. And in case you were curious (which I doubt), among the words not found in the dictionary of this site's spellcheck utility is the word blog itself. Ironic, isn't it?